55% S.Koreans expect Prez-elect to do good job: Poll

Seoul, March 25 (IANS) Fifty-five per cent of South Koreans expect President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol to do a good job after taking office in May, a poll revealed on Friday.

The Gallup Korea poll of 1,000 adults conducted between Tuesday and Thursday also showed that 40 per cent do not expect Yoon to do well on state affairs, reports Yonhap News Agency.

Yoon's approval rating was much lower than those of his predecessors.

In polls conducted within two weeks after their elections, 87 per cent had positive expectations of outgoing President Moon Jae-in, while former Presidents Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye received 84 per cent and 78 per cent, respectively.

Yoon was elected in the March 9 election with 48.56 per cent of the vote, beating his Democratic Party rival, Lee Jae-myung, by 0.73 percentage point, the smallest margin ever.

Asked about Yoon's plan to move the presidential office out of Cheong Wa Dae, 53 per cent of the respondents said they were against the relocation, while 36 per cent supported the idea, the survey showed.

Meanwhile, Moon's approval rating rose 2 percentage points from last week to 44 per cent, while his disapproval rating fell 1 point to 51 per cent.

Asked why they rated Moon's performance positively, 13 per cent cited his job in diplomatic and international relations, while 10 per cent picked his response to the Covid-19 crisis.

Of those who gave negative score to Moon's performance, 19 per cent picked his non-cooperative manner to the President-elect and the incoming government as the main reason, followed by the outgoing leader's real estate policies with 16 per cent.